2/19/12

Teddy Bear Day and Pasta (?)

Well. Today was busy. I am so happy and relieved that I have tomorrow off to recover. I've been catching up on some blogs and I've noticed that not everyone has tomorrow off. Isn't it President's Day? Isn't everyone supposed to? I've also heard that some of you have the entire week off . . . and I will not go into detail about how that makes me feel.

We had brunch at a friend's house today (which included making your own egg souffle type of thing and so I thought I was going to starve, but then they revealed the waffles, pancakes, toast, English muffins, and other assorted carbs so all was okay). One of the girls there (never met her before) enjoyed her mimosas. A lot. You'll be glad to know that I enjoyed water. Because last night I had vodka pasta and wine. And my cardiologist says I should limit my alcohol intake. I do believe that is just a suggestion on his part, and not exactly a medical prescription of any kind. Back to the vodka pasta. I had a couple of people ask about it.

First, it's delicious.

Second, it's pure yumminess.

Third, you need to have someone make it for you as soon as possible if you love Italian food the way that I love Italian food. As in, I love Italian food so much that I think I'm secretly Italian. And when we went to Italy, I felt like I was home. Especially when cab drivers and waiters and people on trains kept inviting us to stay at their house. They knew I was one of them. I think they may have thought I was their lost cousin or something.

We saw the recipe on the Barefoot Contessa. That's all it took. I think the hubby may have run out during the episode to pick up the ingredients.

We (I mean, HE) has since played with the recipe and now we add . . . wait . . . for . . . it . . . now we add . . . BACON!

You can check out the recipe {HERE}. It has another name, too, but I just like Vodka Pasta and that's all! (Junie B. reference in case you didn't know. Although she is not referring to alcohol.)

Okay, onto some Teddy Bear stuff. I have to apologize in advance because I made these documents about five years ago. Before I knew that anyone would want them for their own. And before I knew that blogs even existed and that I would someday have my own. So you will have to do some clicking. Because, try as I might, I couldn't get the whole folder uploaded to Google Docs or Scribd. So I gave up. I have Cadbury mini eggs to eat things to do and I ran out of time. So just scroll through the following documents and click the ones you'd like.

Just so you know, you'll get a wide variety of teddy bears if you tell your kids that they get to bring one to school. So I just made four categories for graphing our bears: black, brown, white, and OTHER. OTHER could also stand for a gigantic stuffed pink pig that a kid in your partner's class brought. You never know. I say potato, you say pahtahto. I say teddy bear, you say pig.

Here's an example of the Teddy Bear crown, just in case you need a visual.

On the fact family page, I gave each kid a ziplock bag of gummi bears (two different colors) and they wrote the corresponding fact family. Once I'd checked it (well, as you could probably guess, some of the kids didn't wait for me to check it, and then I had no idea if they were correct or not), they got to eat the gummi bears.

It was a fun day! Or to be clear, it was a fun afternoon. Because I did not, under any circumstances, sneak in the Teddy Bear Crowns during my Language Arts Block. Nope. Not me. My sixth grade helpers came in and stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the t-shirts and the crowns and all the bear stuff. In perfect sync, they both raised their hands to their cheeks and said, "AWWWW!" And they told me that they still have their T-shirts and said lots of other nice things. I love those girls. Except, mostly, I am afraid of 6th graders. They're all bigger than me now. I used to hug these girls when they were in fifth grade, but now that they're even bigger, it's just awkward. I mean, do they bend down to hug me? Do I stand on a chair to hug them?

34 comments:

I do get to stay home in pjs tomorrow. Or for part of tomorrow because I need to go to the grocery store from the ingredients for a new recipe I want to make (Chicken Rollatini with Spinach alla Parmigiana) and I don't think pjs in the store are acceptable. Even though people DO go to the store in pjs. But one of my students might see me. Case closed :)

I love all your teddy bear stuff! Thank you for sharing!! I have a silly question: Is there a certain month /season that Teddy Bear picnic type events usually happen or can it be anytime? I have obviously never done one before! You did yours in February, but does it matter?CamilleAn Open DoorP.S. I have all next week off, but Miss Kristin I just want to remind you that only one of us had three weeks off at Christmas and it wasn't me.

You guys are making me soooooo jealous. Our district the kids are off and teachers have to go to in-service all day. I love your teddy bear stuff. I do mine in about a month, so I need to file these for March/April. Enjoy your day off!!RobynnBusyBees

Bahaha! You always make me laugh. That Vodka pasta sounds AMAZING. My boyfriend and I always drool over her food. I want to desperately be Ina Gartens's friend. She always has the most beautiful place settings and makes everything "fabulous."

I love the gummy bear idea! We were just working on fact families last week. I should try to mix it up a bit this week with an idea like yours.

Thanks for making me smile!

Come check out my blog sometime. My new blog was installed today, and I just recently posted a few freebies. Enjoy your day off tomorrow!

I think it would be dangerous for the kids to have gummi bears in my classroom. Their bears would be disappearing as I checked their fact families and it wouldn't be the kids who ate them. I LOVE Gummi Bears.

I wish I could stay home with PJ tomorrow. We were originally supposed to have President's Day off, but we're using it as a makeup day to makeup the ONE snow day that we've had this year. Just silly.

I really thought we were going to have tomorrow off anyway because 2-4 inches of snow was in the forecast for today. Did it snow? No. Not one flake. So we're going. I'm even wearing my "I heart snow days" pajamas thinking it would help. It didn't.

Anyway. Let's focus this back on you. I hope you have a wonderful day off tomorrow and enjoy those cadbury mini eggs. I LOVE those things!! Thanks for the teddy bear downloads. Cute stuff.

hahahah I'm glad you didn't starve {I was a little concerned when I read "egg souffle"} and I'm dying over here about the 6th graders! I wish I was as talented now as you were 5 years ago. I got some catchin' up to do!

Pretty sure PJ and I have a date today too although I have some yard work to do and not sure the neighbors would appreciate....wait let me rephrase...I KNOW they would not appreciate that visual!!! So it might be a mini date:/

The teddy bear stuff is adorable! I feel like I can't even think fun for the next week and a half because we have our dredded state writing test...my poor babies...NO FUN!!! I think I'll plan craft day after that test is over....so much pressure.....for what????? No, I am not a fan of state testing:(( Ok, going....sorry....ranting....back to teddy bears...your teddy bear stuff makes me happy:)

Thanks for the adorable teddy bear actvities. We have three half days (7:30-11:15) for the last days of school. I'm thinking a Teddy Bear Day will be lots of fun:-)No school for us today, so I'm going to go in and get a few things done. Guess I'd better get going, most of today is already gone;-)

Love the recipe...I'll have to give it a whirl soon. I thought of you yesterday in that I never got out of my PJs a-l-l-d-a-y-l-o-n-g. It was glorious. Hope you enjoyed your day off today...I know I did! :)

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